First Pair of Planks

This afternoon I glued the garboard planks in place and am writing this with a celebratory beer in my hand! I knew I would have to do some final trimming of the bevel on the stem to get the planks to fit correctly. I didn't realise how much timber I would have to remove. I shaped the bevel using a long flexible batten. This worked OK for the batten but the 9mm thick planks didn't want to follow the same lines due to the considerable amount of twist they have to take. As the planking progresses the twist is less and my original bevel will be a better fit.

Here are a couple of photos of the planks and clamps in place. Screw clamps and glue blocks on the stem with wooden clamps and wedges along the keelson. These wooden clamps work well, easy to make from scrap ply and the wedges allow for a variable amount of pressure.

The glue running down the stem and across the planks at the transom is more than the normal squeezeout. I mixed up some unthickened epoxy and poured it in to gap between the two planks and around the centreboard case to try to make sure that any space left along the joint would be full of epoxy. Messy but I think it will work.